Computer systems have become an indispensable tool used in modern life. Nearly every business and government entity is now dependent upon computer systems for digital communication, project planning, document creation, information storage, transaction processing, project management, inventory management, financial operations, and a large number of other mission critical services.
Due to the critical importance of information technology to most organizations, it is critical to be able to repair or replace any part of the information technology infrastructure that fails. Although individual pieces of computer hardware and computer software can easily be replaced by an entity by purchasing new computer equipment or computer software, the entity's accumulated store of digital information cannot easily be replaced. Thus, digital information storage and digital information protection is one of the most critical parts of any modern information technology infrastructure system.
Modern organizations need to be able to support a wide variety of different computer environments for their computer users. An information technology department may be required to provide digital information storage services to a large central headquarters campus, other geographically remote campuses, remote divisional offices, regional development offices, small remote sales offices, and even individuals that work alone. Ideally, all of these different sized office environments could be provided with the same level of information technology services and support. Furthermore, the information technology department must deal with the fact that new offices open, existing offices close, and offices may move during an organization's lifetime. Providing digital information storage services to such a wide variety of office environments that may include geographically remote offices is a significant challenge to any information technology department. Therefore, it would be desirable to develop a scalable digital information storage system that can provide easily manageable and high-quality digital information storage services to handle any type of computer environment.